The NEW app @TellAboutThis Offers: A Creative Way to Inspire and Capture Children's Ideas or Stories!

If you’ve ever searched for an iPad app to use for elementary writing, you might know of Write About This, a visual writing prompt and creation platform made based on my experiences teaching 4th grade. It's been incredible to see how classrooms around the world have adopted it into their writing communities and processes, and the inspired student work that is shared with us always gives me goosebumps. But it was leaving some kids out. I heard from teachers and parents about students who were not yet developmentally at the writing or typing stage. Clearly, there was a need for children to be able to respond to visual prompts not just with text…. but with their voice! And so we set out to solve that problem based on our core belief:

We believe that a child’s curiosity and imagination can spark wonderful ideas or stories that should be captured and shared!

The result? Tell About This is now available to help inspire, record and share kids voices!

From the start of the design process we worked with several parents, preschool educators and early elementary teachers to find out what content and features were most important for kids. Harnessing what worked in Write About This but creating an experience that was better suited to the younger audience, we arrived at a simple interface that gets right to it.

We know that children want an easy place for them to take the stage to tell their stories and express their thoughts about interesting images and prompts. To spark their thinking and then get out of the way, Tell About This realizes it's power through simplicity. We leverage what the iPad helps us do best (get them interacting with real-world images, recording their voice, saving/sharing the media) and let the kids work the true magic.

We know that adults want an easy way to get kids engaged with verbal responses using a safe and customizable platform. Images can be browsed by category from content that is included and of course custom prompts can be made with user-added images, text and voice! Once kids find a prompt, they are 3 taps away from having a completed Tell About ready to play back, save to the camera roll or share by email. User Profiles have been a huge hit and early literacy support is built-in with prompt audio narration plus text highlighting. Importantly, all interactions can be customized by adults in the settings!

It would be remiss to not sincerely thank our family, friends and supporters who have donated their time and efforts during this process! We will continue to listen to the students, educators and families who are using Tell About This and Write About This in order to make them even better platforms! We love to interact with users on Twitter @WriteAboutThis or @TellAboutThis and our Pinterest boards have tons of K-6 writing prompts!

So...what will your kiddos Tell About?

5 Ways Parents and Teachers Use Tell About This with Kids:

Let children explore the prompts and tell a story about something they find interesting!

Use a photo of something exciting from a child’s life and have them record a Tell About to capture their reaction. Email or post for parents to listen!

Retell a story using a picture from the book as a custom prompt.

Brainstorm a writing piece for early writers.. capture their ideas to play back at any time.

Kickstart and record verbal language practice using fun prompts that get kids talking!

Brad Wilson is a former 4th grade teacher turned Ed Tech Consultant. He has the privilege of supporting educators in Jackson County, Michigan with meaningful and innovative technology integration strategies. Brad is constantly thinking about how to make learning more Eventful and also enjoys working to empower teacher and student voices through the #MichED movement and podcast. He tweets at @dreambition and shares resources and thoughts at 21innovate.com

Thank you so much Brad for sharing your new app with Kleinspiration readers!

I can't imagine the potential for creative classrooms… especially K-2 learners! I am so excited for Jacob, my 5 year old, to try it out! He's going to LOVE telling stories (he already does… now he has a super awesome way to capture his voice!) ~ Thanks!

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Meet the Author:

Erin Klein is an award winning educator, national keynote speaker, author, and mother who has been twice selected to serve on the Scholastic, Inc. Top Teaching Team based in New York. Her recent publication, Amazing Grades, was a collaboration with experts from 13 countries around the world. She travels the country speaking about the power of student voice, how meaningful technology integration can enhance learning experiences, and the impact classroom design has on today’s learner.

She is certified in Brain Gym, Educational Kinesiology, and has studied under consultants from The Center for Effective Learning to understand how design affects cognition and learning. Klein serves as a classroom design consultant and creative partner for the publishing company, Carson-Dellosa. Some of her articles and interviews on design for education and technology tools for the classroom can be found on Smartblogs for Education, MindShift, Scholastic, Edudemic, Edutopia, EdSurge, and EdReach.

Klein served for the past three years as the state’s technology chairperson for the Michigan Reading Association and is the 2014 recipient of the MACUL Pre-K - 12 Teacher of the Year for Michigan. In 2013, Klein was also awarded her district’s Teacher of the Year award. She currently serves on the advisory board for Remind101 in San Francisco and is an organizer for the EdCamp Detroit Annual Educational unConference. Among Klein’s accomplishments, she was also recognized as a SMART Technologies Exemplary Educator, ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) 2012 Social Media Influencer, a National Association of Independent Schools Teacher of the Future, ASCD Emerging Leader, and a member of The National Writing Project. This past summer, Klein was accepted into The Teacher’s College at Columbia University to advance her studies in reading and writing workshop.

Klein has also hosted webinars for The United States Department of Education to share her perspective on Future Ready Schools. Most recently she was one of nine professionals selected to be a featured speaker on Future Ready Schools at the national Digital Learning Day in Washington D.C.

For the past two years, Klein has been invited to Washington D.C. to represent the BAM 100 Influential Voice in Education.

In 2014, Klein was selected to serve on the state of Michigan’s Voice Fellowship, through America Achieves. Through this initiative, she was invited to be a part of the national Teach to Lead summits through The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and the United States Department of Education where she continues to work on shaping teacher leadership across the country.

She has her Masters of Education in Curriculum and Instruction, currently teaches at the elementary level, and lives in Michigan with her family.